Surgical and examination gloves perform a barrier function providing separation between a patient and a health care worker. In fulfilling this function, the gloves act to block the introduction of infectious agents, particularly bacteria and fungi, from the hands of the health care worker into a surgical incision or wound of the patient. In this regard, it has been recognized that bacteria present in pores of a health care worker's hands frequently survive antibacterial scrubbing to be released with perspiration into the interior of the glove. These bacteria pose a significant risk of infection for the patient if a tear or hole in the glove allows their release. Thus, antimicrobial gloves have been proposed with the intention of killing these released bacteria within the glove. U.S. Pat. No. 4,853,978 to Stockum.
The barrier function of the gloves also serves to protect the health care worker from pathogenic agents, particularly those present in the blood or other body fluids of the patient. Of particular significance in this regard are viruses, such as HIV, the virus causing Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and Hepatitis B virus (HBV) which may even penetrate through a glove that is not actually perforated, but merely stretched. Agents which are effective against these viral pathogenic agents, however, are less common than those that will provide an effect against simple skin bacteria or fungi and must frequently be present at much higher levels to be efficacious. This can cause difficulties for the wearer whose skin is in contact with high levels of antiinfective agent, sometimes for hours at a time. It would therefore be highly advantageous to provide gloves in which an effective virucidal agent were maintained in a "ready" state, available for quick or even instant release as needed to counter the effects of possible viral contamination.
The Stockum patent cited above provides a partial but incomplete solution to this problem. Stockum discloses gloves having an interior coating of polyurethane, starch and chlorhexidine. Chlorhexidine has the ability to kill the AIDS virus and HBV as shown in prior commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/385,290, which is incorporated herein by reference. The release rates reported by Sotckum, i.e., release from the coating over several hours, are not quick enough, however, to provide meaningful protection from viral pathogens. Moreover, we have found that gloves made by dipping cured gloves in an antimicrobial preparation suffer from significant activity loss on storage, and thus from poor reliability.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,133,090 describes an antimicrobial glove in which adsorption sites for antiinfective agent in the lubricating agent or in the glove material itself are blocked. Gloves prepared according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,133,090 deliver an effective amount of antiinfective agent within ten minutes of exposure to liquid.
It is the objective of the present invention to provide surgical or examination gloves which even more rapidly release effective antiviral amounts of an antiinfective agent upon exposure to liquid, and which retain this ability over periods of prolonged storage.